


Hearts Burst Into Fire

by DashFlintceschi



Series: Hearts Burst Into Fire [1]
Category: You Me At Six
Genre: Dan uses cheesy pick ups, Josh is a bit of a bitch, M/M, Mentions of the undercut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 18:45:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1698734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashFlintceschi/pseuds/DashFlintceschi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan's an electrician with heart failure, Josh is his cardiologist. Dan isn't the only one with a heart in need of fixing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearts Burst Into Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure where this came from. I'm planning a sequel with small snippets from their relationship, if anyone's interesting. Title credit to Bullet For My Valentine, the song has nothing to do with the story, it was just the only thing I could think of that had something to do with hearts.

Dan Flint enjoys his job as an electrician, he’s good at it and he likes trying to figure out what caused a short. That enjoyment comes to an end, though, when he’s twenty-three. He’s been called out to look at a lighting rig at a popular music venue which won’t work, no matter how many times they change the bulbs or the fuses.

When he gets there, the crew happily show him to the rig, which they’ve helpfully lowered to the stage for him. He doesn’t mind climbing up to reach a rig, it’s just more convenient for him if it’s lowered. He declines the offer of tea and gets to work, running through every possibility in his mind. Unbeknownst to Dan, though, the idiots didn’t disconnect the rig from the power supply, so as soon as his fingers touch the wire he’s just exposed, a massive shock runs through him, throwing him across the room with a deafening bang, and leaving him with a horrific burn up his arm and severe chest pains.

The venue staff come running at the bang, and they barely have to glance at him to know they need an ambulance. Dan’s last thought before he loses consciousness is that it can’t be that bad, just a burn and a bit of chest pain. He’s wrong, though. He wakes up shortly after they’ve stabilised him, and finds a ridiculously young, ridiculously good looking doctor standing beside his bed taking notes. He jumps when Dan speaks.

“So, how long until I can get out of here?” He asks hoarsely, and the doctor gives him a sympathetic smile.

“It’ll be a while yet, I’m afraid,” he tells him softly, and Dan frowns in confusion.

“It’s just a burn, though, isn’t it? My chest feels fine, now, so what’s the point in keeping me here?” He asks, and the doctor gets that sympathetic look on his face again.

“You may feel fine, but you’re not. The electrocution sent you into heart failure. That’s why I’m here. My name’s Dr. Franceschi, I’m a cardiologist and I’m just taking the details of your current condition to decide what the best course of action is,” he tells him, and Dan snorts.

“Yeah, right, there’s no way you’re old enough to be a doctor, let alone a specialist,” he insists, and Dr. Franceschi smiles.

“Well, that’s the strangest compliment I’ve had in a while. I assure you, though, I’m thirty-three years old, and have almost a decade of experience under my belt. I’m more than qualified to treat you,” he insists, and Dan can’t help but gape at him. This guy looks about seventeen, there’s no way he’s ten years older than Dan.

The doctor takes a few more notes, asks Dan a few questions about how he’s feeling, then tells him he’ll be back once he’s evaluated his notes and decided on treatment. As soon as he leaves Dan’s room, he heads straight to the staff room at the other end of the ward.

“So, sexy electrician in 37 didn’t think I was old enough to be a doctor,” he comments to one of the nurses as he sits beside him, Max, one of his oldest friends.

“Well, Josh, I’ve told you a million times that you look about sixteen, maybe now, you’ll believe me,” Max responds, not looking up from the poker game he’s started up with Matt, another of their oldest friends, who they rarely see now, since he works down in the research lab. 

“You should get that undercut again, you could actually pass for twenty when you had that. Or maybe grow a beard, or both,” Matt comments with a grin, and Josh’s only response is a middle finger as he opens Dan’s file and starts looking over his notes.

Josh stays in the staff room, looking over his notes and wracking his brain while listening to Matt and Max’s quiet banter, until the pager on his belt goes mental. He takes one look at it and jumps up so quickly, his chair goes skidding across the room. He takes no notice of it, darting from the room as Max and Matt look on curiously. He runs the length of the ward to room 37, where Dan’s just gone into cardiac arrest. He’s conscious, barely, as Josh moves to the side of the bed, squeezing in between two nurses who are working frantically to stabilise him.

“You’d better leave, that bum of yours is hardly going to calm my heart down,” Dan wheezes with his best attempt at a sly grin, but Josh can barely bring himself to snort as he nudges one of the nurses out of his way and starts chest compressions. “Ah, my cunning plan to get your hands on me has succeeded,” Dan tries again, but his wispy voice and rolling eyes ruin the effect somewhat. The nurse on Josh’s left flits away, and she’s quickly replaced by Max, who’s holding out charged defibrillator paddles to him. 

By this time, Dan’s lost consciousness, which Josh is glad of, for Dan’s sake, as he calls ‘clear!’ and presses the paddles to Dan’s chest as soon as the nurse on Dan’s other side jumps back. It has no effect, so Josh nods to Max, who cranks up the voltage.

“Going again. Clear!” Josh calls out, and everyone moves back again as he slams the paddles back down again. He stares at the heart monitor for a few seconds with bated breath, then sighs in relief. “We’re back in sinus rhythm,” he announces, and the atmosphere in the room calms as the nurses start clearing away the equipment and Dan’s eyes flutter open slowly.

“Aww, why d’you stop feeling me up?” He laments hoarsely, and this time, Josh manages a small laugh.

“Because I decided it would be more fun to electrocute you,” he jokes, waving the paddles at Dan as he hands them back to Max.

Thankfully, Dan’s condition improves as the day goes on, and by the time Josh goes in to change the dressings on Dan’s burned arm at the end of his shift, Dan’s sitting up in bed, holding his burned left arm out willingly as he uses his right hand to flick through the channels.

“When did TV get so shit?” He whines rhetorically, switching the TV off and dropping the remote onto the bed with a huff. He turns his attention to Josh instead, watching as he gently bathes the burn with saline. “Y’know what would make all this easier to put up with? The promise of a date with you when I get out,” he comments casually, and Josh laughs softly.

“Sorry, I’m off the market, plus, you’re a bit young for me, don’t you think?” He replies, not taking his eyes off of Dan’s arm.

“Not really, it’s not as if I’m a teenager or anything. Doesn’t matter, anyway, if your… Engaged? Married?” He questions, and Josh sighs.

“Recently divorced, and in no hurry to let someone else mess with my head,” he informs him curtly, and Dan takes the hint to shut the fuck up.

When Josh goes into Dan’s room the next morning, he’s surprised to find Dan sewing, albeit slightly clumsily, due to his burned, heavily bandaged hand.

“You don’t seem the sewing type,” he comments amicably as he faffs with Dan’s heart monitor and checks his chart to update himself on Dan’s condition during the night.

“Yeah, my nan taught me when I was younger. I like the repetitiveness of it, I can just sink away into my own thoughts,” he explains, and Josh has to admit to himself that he’s impressed. “I’m also not the messing with people’s heads type,” Dan continues softly, and Josh turns to him with an irritated frown.

“I am not going to go on a date with you, and if you mention it again, I’ll file a sexual harassment complaint and have you transferred, are we clear?” He snaps, and Dan nods dejectedly, returning to his sewing and not saying another word the whole time Josh is there.

Dan takes Josh’s threat seriously, either staying quiet or making banal small talk whenever Josh comes near his room. That is, until Josh finds out what Dan’s been sewing a few days later. He’s sitting in the staff room again, still trying to figure out what the best treatment for Dan would be. He’s got him on medication to keep him stable for now, but those won’t keep him alive forever, or even for much longer, he needs to figure out something soon. Max comes wandering in and throws a neatly wrapped package at Josh.

“Your sexy electrician in 37 asked me to give you that,” he informs him as he flicks the kettle on. Josh unwraps it curiously, and finds a fleece-lined beanie made of soft, azure fabric with a note attached to it with a safety pin. He turns the note to read it and scowls. 

_‘To protect that pretty head of yours,’_

He downs the rest of his tea and gets to his feet, storming out of the staff room without a word, heading straight along the ward to room 37. He storms into Dan’s room and throws the beanie into his lap.

“I thought I told you to leave me alone?” He snarls, and Dan stares at him with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry, I just… I thought it would make you smile. Clearly, I crossed a line that I never meant to go near, and I am sorry,” he mumbles, absently twisting the beanie between his fingers. Josh lets some of his anger go at that, and turns to leave without a word, but Dan’s soft, hesitant voice stops him. “What makes you so sure that I would hurt you?” Josh spins back around with narrowed eyes.

“I beg your pardon?” It comes out as a soft hiss, and Dan almost chickens out, but he steels himself and continues.

“What makes you so sure that, if you gave me a chance, I would mess with your head, or hurt you?” He asks, even softer and more hesitant than the first time. He expects Josh to blow up at him, but he seems to deflate instead.

“I don’t, that’s the problem. I never expected my ex to fuck with my head the way she did towards the end of our marriage, but I guess you can never really know what someone else is going to do, which is why I’m so scared of letting anyone else in. Plus, you’re twenty-three, you’re just a kid. If I were looking for someone, it would be to settle down, permanently, and god knows, that’s the last thing any twenty-three year old wants,” he rambles, and Dan sighs as he continues twisting the beanie in his fingers.

“You’re right, you can never know what someone else is going to do, or say, like you probably have no idea that I’m about to say that I do want to settle down with someone permanently. I’ve had enough one night stands and stupid, pointless relationships with people my own age to last me a lifetime. What I want now is a proper, preferably permanent relationship, with someone that doesn’t want fucking drama or to get wasted every weekend. For lack of a better phrase, I’m ready to be a damned grown up, and I think you and I would be spectacular together,” Josh looks dumbfounded at Dan’s speech, and all he can do is softly stammer,

“I-I’ll think about it,” then back out of the room quickly to go hide in the staff room.

It’s Matt that gives Josh the solution to his problem of how to treat Dan, and he doesn’t even mean to do it. They’re sitting in Josh’s living room, drinking beer and playing Monopoly, because that’s what the cool kids do on a Friday night. Matt’s telling them about the success they’ve had with tests to repair damaged hearts in mice, by taking stem cells from the bone marrow in the mice’s spines and injecting it into their hearts. 

“I swear, three injections over three weeks, and within five days of the final injection, the hearts were good as new, and it doesn’t do any damage to the spine, because they grow back the marrow. All we need now are human test subjects… Josh? Where’re you going?” Josh just waves over his shoulder as he grabs his hoodie and keys and rushes out the door.

Dan’s just turned off the TV and settled down to sleep when Josh creeps into his room. He watches through cracked eyelids as Josh carefully sits down on the edge of the bed and gently touches Dan’s arm with his fingertips.

“S’ok, I’m awake,” he tells him softly, and Josh smiles at him.

“Did I wake you?” He asks quietly, and when Dan shakes his head, he continues. “I have a friend, he works in the research lab downstairs, they think they’ve found a cure for heart failure, but they’ve only tested it in mice,” he pauses as Dan holds his hand up to quiet him.

“If I volunteer for the human trials, what damage would it do if it didn’t work?” He questions, and Josh shakes his head with a smile.

“None, they take stem cells from your bone marrow and inject them into your heart. If it doesn’t work, there won’t be any further damage to your heart, and the bone marrow will grow back anyway,” he explains, and Dan nods slowly.

“Tell your friend to sign me up, then,” he mumbles, and Josh grins at him, silently deciding to stay with Dan until he falls asleep, but that only takes a few seconds anyway. As Josh stands to leave, he spots his beanie on the bedside cabinet, silently lifting it and sliding it into his pocket as he sneaks from the room.

A month later, Dan becomes the first case study that proves the success of Matt’s team’s new cure. Josh runs every test he knows exactly five days after the final injection, and sure enough, Dan has the heart of a fit, healthy twenty-three year old. When Dan’s discharged a few hours later, he’s surprised to find Josh waiting at the main entrance for him, bundled up against the snow that started falling earlier in the day, the beanie Dan made for him pulled down over his ears. He answers Dan’s puzzled look with a bashful smile.

“You let me fix your heart, is there any chance you’re still interested in fixing mine?” He asks softly, nervously holding his gloved hand out to Dan. Dan doesn’t have to think twice as he takes Josh’s hand gladly, linking their fingers together with a grin.


End file.
